Sunday, March 17, 2013

Tricky: "Nothing's Changed"

With dream pop and shoegaze having mounted major comebacks in the last few years, can trip hop be far behind? Not as long as Tricky has anything to say about it. The nostalgia nod in the title of "Nothing's Changed" is meant to emphasize that he's back on some old Maxinquaye shit. With no disrespect to Francecsa Belmonte - the featured singer here - she's squarely in that Martina Topley-Bird mold.

I've been listening to a lot of old 90's electronic music lately and I think the current generation is giving those old artists short shrift. Groundbreaking artists like Tricky, Autechre, Underworld, etc don't seem to garner nearly the OG props that indie rocks bands of a similar vintage are heralded with (My Bloody Valentine, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc). Granted, some of those artists are fallen off seriously in quality, but so have a lot of 90's rock bands that still enjoy massive concert attendance and obligatory Stereogum nods. Could the fact that Pitchfork never really got hip to electronica unless it's too late have something to do with the fact that the art form is thriving more than ever, yet its pioneers get no love from the hipster music blogs? Probably a topic for another column.